Endless conveyer



Patented .lilly y l, 1930 r @TED fr JOHN C. ANDERSON, F KEYPORT, NEW JERSEY mr'nrnss ooNvEYEn Application mea February 1s, 1927. seriai no. ieasva My invention relates to endless conveyers and it has special reference to conveyers 'for transporting articles of glassware through annealing lehrs. f

rlhe object of my invention is to provide an improved endless conveyer having its loadbearing strand composed of two superposed conveyer members, the lower or p rimary conveyer being of such construction and arrange-A 0 ment as to support the load and to take the strain of pulling the load through the lehr, and the upper or secondary conveyer being so constructed as to support the load evenly.

Lehrs for annealing glassware are comi` l monly provided with endless conveyers for transporting the glassware through the lehr. It was formerly customary to construct such conve `,fers of metal slats supported near their o ends upon endless chains. More recently, flexible woven wire conveyers of low heat-capacity have been employed for this purpose as described, for example, in the U. S. Ingle Patent No. 1,583,046., Such woven wire conveyers have necessarily been made of suciently heavy wire to withstand the strain of pulling a heavy load of glassware through the lehr. `1t has been found that very small bottles are likely to tip over when placed in certain posi- 3G tionsfupon such woven wire conveyers.

According to my present invention, I provide a primary conveyer which may be of the old-style slat type, but vis preferably of the woven-wire type. Resting upon this primary g5 conveyer is a ware-supporting secondary conveyer which. may be made from any flexible material capable of passing around rollers and having a sufficiently smooth surface to support small bottles or other articles, without danger of tipping over. The secondary conveyer may be made of finely woven spiral wire mesh or of square woven wire, llke window screening, or may be of any other suitable construction. Preferably it should be suciently open in mesh to permit the passage of air and should be suciently light in weight to adapt itself to the changing temperature conditions within the lehr, without materially interfering with the temperature of the glassware.

In the accompanying drawing:

Figure 1 is a partial longitudinal sectional .view showing the essential parts of an anneallng lehr equlpped with a conveyer constructed in accordance with my invention;

Fig. 2 is anenlarged fragmentary plan view showing portions of the two superposed conveyers;

Fig. 3 is an enlarged sectional view through portions of the superposed conveyers; and

Fig. 4 is a fragmentary longitudinal sectional view showing a modied construction in which the primary conveyer is of the olds'tyle Slat type. a The lehr shown in Fig. 1 of the drawing is 65 of the general construction described in the Ingle patent mentioned above and in the Mulholland Patent No. 1,560,481. It comprises a tunnel 2 having a fiat metal floor 3 beneath which are iues 4 into which hot gases are in- 70 troduced from a ire box 5 into which flames from a burner 6 are directed. The lehr is preferably provided with`cooling fines 7 above the lehr tunnel and with a suction -fan 8 driven by a motor 9 for drawing air through the 75 cooling lines 7 and for drawing combustion products and air through the hot ues t. Dampers and other arrangements for controlling the temperature within the tunnel 2are also preferably provided, but arrangements are omitted from the drawing since they form 'no art of my present invention.

lassware is transported through the tunnel 2 'from left to right, as vshown in Fig. 1, by means of a duplex conveyer consisting of a lower or primary conveyer member 10 and an lupper or secondary conveyer member 11.

These conveyers, moving together, are guided into the entrance end of the lehr by a roller 12 and after emerging from the tunnel 2 the 90 i conveyers pass over a sorting table composed of rollers 13. At the end of the sorting table the two conveyers are preferably separated and are returned toward the entrance end of the tunnel in separate aths. rlhe primary conveyer 10, which is re ed upon vte take the strain of pulling the load through the lehrg asses around a roller 14, a driving drum 15, etween the drum 15 and a pinch roller 16,

and thence under an idle roller 17 and around 100 take-up rollers 18 and 19 to an idle roller 20. At the idle roller 20, the primary conveyer is rejoined by the secondary conveyer 11, which has passedaround a roller 21, somewhat offset 4from the roller 14, and around idle rollers 22, 23 and take-up rollers 24. The com- .bin'ed conveyer members are then guided by suitable idle rollers 25 toa roller 26,. which directs them upwardly toward the roller 12 at the entrance to the tunnel. v y

The supporting and guiding arrangements just described may be considerably varied, ac-

cording to the requirements of particular innate sections of right-hand and left-hand Cil twist, as described in the Ingle patent mentioned above. The secondary conveyer 11, as shown, is also composed of woven wire fabric of square mesh in the example shown, and is of substantially smaller mesh than the primary conveyer 10, in order to present a smoother surface for supporting rthe articles to be conveyed. As stated above, the secondary conveyer may be made of any fabric, lpreferably of open-mesh, which is capable of passing around rollersand has a suiliciently smooth supporting surface.

Fig. 4 shows a modified construction in which a primary conveyer 30 is composed of slats, as in the old-style lehr construction mentioned above, and is associated with a secondaryconveyer 31, which is indicated diagrammatically and may be similar in its con struction to the secondary conveyer 11 or may be'of largermesh. In such an arrangement it may be found desirable to make the secondary conveyer 31 of relatively large mesh, such as that of the primary conveyer 10 of Figs. l to 3. In this way an old-style lehr, with a slat conveyer, may be equipped with a woven wire secondary conveyer similar to the conveyers used in the more modern type of lehr.

The use of a secondary conveyer with a rimary conveyer of wovenv wire fabric makes 1t possible to reduce 'the cost of the primary conveyer, which can be made of coarser mesh than `is necessary when such conveyer is to be used alone. The cost of the primary conveyer may also be reduced in other respects. For example, the meshes of the fabric do not need to be flattened when used with a secondary conveyer, as they should be ifthe primary conveyer is used alone.

l The secondary conveyer is subjected to little or no wear, because it does not drag over the floor of the lehr tunnel. It is not necessary to provide any drive mechanism for the secondary conveyer,lbecause it is carried by friction along with the primary conveyer.

However, a separate drive for the secondary conveyer may e provided if desired, or both the primary and secondary conveyers may be passedv together through the same driving mechanism, such as the drum and pinch roller arrangement described above. The primary and secondary conveyers may be permanently secured together by means of clips or the like, but such attachment is not ordinarily necessary.

The conveyer herein shown and described is adapted to various uses other than in annealing lehrs, and my invention includes such other uses.

I have shown and described constructions which are well suited for carrying my invention into practice, but it will be understood that variations may be made within the scope of the appended claims.

I claim as my invention:

1. A lehr conveyer comprising a plurality of reticulated endless conveyer members superposed one upon the other and having a ubstantially smooth ware supporting surace.

2. A lehr conveyer comprising a primary load-supporting endless conveyer member which takes the strain of pulling the load to be conveyed, andl a second endless conveyer member superposed upon said primary conveyer member for directly supporting such load, said second conveyer member having a smoother surface than said primary conveyer member.

3. A lehr conveyer comprising a primary endless load-supporting conveyer for taking the strain of pulling the load to be conveyed, and a secondary conveyer of fine mesh openwork construction superposed upon said prinay conveyer for directly supporting such 4. A lehr comprising a tunnel and a conveyer for. transporting articles of glassware through said tunnel, the said conveyer comprising a rough surface primary endless conveyer member and a smooth surface secondary endless conveyer member superposed on said primary conveyer member.

5. A lehr comprising a tunnel, and means for transporting articles therethrough comprising a primary conveyer of woven wire fabric of relatively coarse mesh resting upon the floor of said tunnel, and a secondary conveyer of woven wire fabric of relatively fine mesh superposed upon said primary conveyer.

6. A lehr comprising a tunnel, and means for transporting articles therethrough com# prising a primary conveyer of woven wire fabric of relatively coarse mesh resting upon the Hoor of said tunnel, a secondary conveyer of woven wire vfabric of relatively fine mesh superposed upon said primary conveyer, driving means for movingsaid primary conveyer through said tunnel, and means for guiding said secondary conveyer around said driving means Without engagement therewith.

7. A lehr conveyer comprising a belt of 10W heat capacity having a substantially smooth supporting surface, and means for supporting said belt and taking the `driving'strains the last named means driving the belt by frictional contact alone.

8. A lehr conveyer comprising a belt having a large heat radiating area and a substantially smooth supporting surface, and means for supporting said belt and taking the driving strains the last named means driving the belt by frictional contact alone.

9. A lehr conveyer comprising a belt of low heat capacity having a large heat radiating area and a substantially smooth supporting surface, and means for supporting the belt and taking the driving strains the last named means driving the belt by friotional Contact alone.

10. A conveyer for transportinghot articles having relatively small bottoms, comprising a belt of low heat capacity and having a substantially smooth surface, and means for supporting said belt and taking the driving strains the last named'means comprising a second belt composed of Wire fabric.

Signed at Hartford, Connecticut this 10th day of February, 1927.

JOHN C. ANDERSON. 

